THE STORY OF ACE

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Through the many years I have travelled in the north I have met people of all kinds.  These people often have pets with them.  Why anyone would bring a cat into the bush is beyond me �?a parrot, a budgie or a snake is equally unsuited to travel in the north.  Let me tell you about Ace, a more than suitable traveller, for the land north of Superior.

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We found Ace as a tiny pup about to take the final swim in the big river.  The wrinkled tiger stripe nose and the too large for body size feet, made him a cute and cuddly type.  He was just right for our home where we had two small boys, five and three years old.

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From the first Ace was a fast learner, his business was done outside within the week and he had laid claim to his patch of living room carpet.  His food and water dishes were always kept full, if not he asked for more.  He quickly learned to play fight, fierce snarling, bared teeth, the body language spelled fight, but he never broke the skin on any of us.  He realized from the first that there were three pups in the house and only one top dog!

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The dog and our sons developed into an efficient team.  If the boys were not around I knew they were safe because Ace was with them.  When the boys got tired they came home, and Ace came with them.  He would flop down panting and tongue hanging from play and fall asleep.  Whether at home on the carpet or out camping on the grass, the sleep lasted as long as the boys were quiet.  If it was only five minutes, he was ready to go, if longer he was still happy.

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From the first Ace camped with us.  He took to the water like a beaver.  He just had one rule; nobody went out further in the water than he did.  He was the lifeguard.  Even that last summer, old as he was, he forced himself to be on guard.

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When we first got Ace he used to lay on his back, all four legs splayed as only a dog can.  This habit came to an abrupt end the first trip in June that first year.  He was quite content lying there in the sun, spread eagled, until a bumblebee came to disturb him.  The bee stung him where no dog should be stung!  This one bite started a life-long crusade: a buzzing bee would put Ace in his hunt/kill mode.  A snap of his jaws would stun the perpetrator while a well placed paw would finish the bee off.  A quick patrol of the area was then called for, and other intruders were eliminated. Wild flower patches would call for several search and destroy actions in the course of a day.

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Several times a family of partridge walked by a dozing Ace and got only a one eyed look as they passed.  A family of passing ducks on the other hand brought out the hunter in him.  He would lay in wait for them and then charge after them, swimming out into the lake, as the ducks swam out to safety.  For several years it seemed that the dog and the ducks made a game of this.  One year there were no ducks at their usual place, and Ace wandered around like a lost soul looking for them the first day we arrived.  Why the ducks and not the partridge I will never know.

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One summer, while camped in a big gravel pit with a pickeral lake just down a creek, I was cooking super when I happened to look out the window.  A huge skunk, tail straight behind him and belly to the ground, was only a foot or two in front of Ace, also stretched flat out for speed.  I gave a sharp whistle and yelled, “STAY�?  I was outside in a flash, trying to figure out how to handle Ace when he came back, skunk sprayed.  Just then Ace came around the camper.  Panting hard, he rubbed against me, he hadn’t been sprayed!  I rewarded him with a good scratch.  Satisfied with the day’s work Ace flopped under the cool of the camper to recoup.  That was the only time I have ever seen a skunk move faster than an insolent, ass swaying, tail high walk.

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Ace got old.  That last summer a bear cleaned a few pieces of left over beer batter fish and some cooking oil from a fry pan on our cook table outside the camper.  That bear was only six or seven feet from Ace and he never smelled, heard or saw it through the open camper windows.  Twice when I was coming up from the river Ace gave me his territorial bark.  When he finally recognized me, he put his head down, slunk under the camper and had to be coaxed out at great length.  Even the bees that final summer were safe.

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I came home one winter evening and there was no Ace to meet me.  I found him in the kitchen, lying on a rug in front of the heat register.  He barely raised his head in greeting as I knelt down to scratch him. We managed to get him to drink some water.  Before bedtime he went for a pee like always.  Afterwards, he went and lay down on the kitchen rug again, not on his chosen part of the living room carpet.  The next morning he hadn’t moved.  We couldn’t get him to even drink some water.  I phoned the vet uptown.  That drive was the longest hundred kilometres I have ever driven.  Ace lay in the back seat of the car on his blanket.  He never moved.

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At the vet’s office, I held Ace’s head as the vet shaved a small patch on his foreleg and slipped the needle in.

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Just before Ace’s eyes closed for the last time, he looked at me.  That old gleam, that what-are-we-going-to-do-today look was in his eyes.  His eyed faded and closed.  I laid that proud head on the table and stroked his fur one last time.  Ace was chasing bumblebees in doggie heaven.

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No more faithful companion than Ace could a man ask for as he travels the back roads in the land north of Superior.